" Don't fix what's not broke"

In the light of today's modern world, we look at 21st century Ireland and ask ourselves, why would you uproot your young family and travel half way round the world to end up in WA; Dry, desolate, unforgiving and in 1895 little to no infrastructure to relay on. And yet this is what GF William Francis did in 1897.As of yet I have not had it reasoned why, but after two trips to the emerald isle and studying a bit of Irish history, may-be one can understand and see why. He was a would be writer/news columnist, I think a bit of a protagonist, and in light of the goings on in the late 1890's early 1900's may have been given an ultimatum leave or suffer the consequences.

From evidence we have found we can say that his Grand Father Francis Henderson, made and established a secure and posable well paid business in the ship wright industry in the early part of the 19th century. By the time Francis was 21 (1820) the Canals had been in operation for the best part of 50 years and the last sections had only been completed 15 years before. With a second Canal being constructed ; The Royal Canal between 1790 and 1817 and According to Wikipedia trade had doubled between 1800 and 1810 and double again in 1820. So building and maintaining boats and barges was the trade of the day.

As to date we have not found what may have enticed him into this trade, whether it was his father, weather he was given an apprenticeship ( we have some articles showing he had boys in his care for endowments ). It is sure that his son William Henry was taken into the profession as there are many references to him in local Dublin papers and almanacs for trades and professions. Williams 3 son's look as though they may have taken a different path, with William henry Jnr and Francis Henderson going into accounting, more on that later.

With thanks to The Warnock Family Register we have been able to follow and track almost all of our family members from the 1800's through to the 1970's-80's. Just prior to traveling to Ireland in 2014, I invested some cash into the genealogical soc of Ireland to try and do some more digging prior to us getting over there for 4 weeks of research and they were able to come up with two unconfirmed, as far as my standard of proof is concerned, but plausible evidence. So we have Francis' parents being William and Elizbeth Warnock and William's parents being alexander and arrabella Warnock. William being born in 1770 and Alexander born in 1740 both in the city of Dublin, Dublin. (Note, I will refer to locations as Dublin, Dublin, that being the city or town of Dublin being in the county or shire of Dublin.) The other point to these records, government civil registration of birth, deaths and marriages did not commence until 1864, so prior to this only church records were keep, the problem with this is from about 1870 the British government were collecting all censes and church records for recording and in 1922 at the Easter uprising, Irish republicans burned several government building including the one that held most of these records, so sometimes joining the dots is quite a problem..

"And now the bad news. More than half of all Church of Ireland registers were destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Public Records Office in Dublin. Ironically, they had been ordered to be sent there for safe keeping."

"The good news is that Church of Ireland registers generally start a lot earlier than those of most other faiths in Ireland. This is because it was the Established or State Church and, as such, was legally obliged to keep records. Until 31 December 1870, the Protestant Church of Ireland was the Established (State) Church of the island. This obligation dated back to the 17th century when baptisms and burials of Irish Protestants started to be recorded. This process began with urban areas and gradually spread out to the surrounding countryside but it was more than 100 years before some rural parishes were created. This is why the majority of registers don't begin until the late 18th or early 19th century. And now the bad news. More than half of all Church of Ireland registers were destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Public Records Office in Dublin. Ironically, they had been ordered to be sent there for safe keeping. That order had been made in 1876, a few years after the dis-establishment of the Church of Ireland. All its old registers, being state records, had to be sent to the Public Record Office unless the local clergy could demonstrate that they had suitable safe storage for them. Nearly 1,000 parishes decided to comply with the order to surrender their original registers to Dublin. Fortunately, some clergymen made transcripts before parting with them. Another 637 parishes did not comply with the order and those registers survive." 'Quote for irish-genology.com'.

Up until 1660 the population of Dublin county was under 10,000, then from 1660 to 1760 it rose to over 140,000, quite an expansion in 100 years, from 1760 to 1860 almost doubling to 265,000. So for the time period were looking at it is quite posable Alexander and Arrabella come to Dublin city for work from one of the outlying areas. At this stage we are a bit sketchy on the lives of Alexander and William with more research needing to be done. It is possible Francis had a sister, this is documented by the Irish Geno soc, but there is no mention of a sister in the Warnock register which I would have thought would have made mention of one.

:)